1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to telecommunications and company-wide communication. More particularly, the present invention is related to a new method of transferring data by using a mobile telephone. Actually the present invention is related to a method of sending data from a sender to a recipient and to a method of retrieving data, belonging to an owner by a recipient, the data being any kind of digital information stored on a database.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays the convergence between mobile telephone systems and Internet is a growing trend.
The so called ‘Web based communication centers’ are websites offering a series of services that can be accessed by the Web and/or by the mobile phone: for example e-mail, storage and sharing of data, links towards other sites, synchronization between the information contained in the site and those on the hard disk. These websites manage on the Net both the information necessary for the owner's activities, and the data to be shared with others. This kind of cohabitation makes the consultation of information difficult since it requires the creation of user groups and various levels of securitized access. The wireless access capabilities are restricted to web-enabled (WAP) phones, which allow the checking of the e-mail account, and the sending of e-mails. Normal mobile phones cannot be used in such a scheme. The sending of e-mail from the mobile requires the awkward operation of entering an e-mail address on the WAP-phone.
Another type of existing application is a ‘Mailbox manager’. This is a service wherein an electronic mailbox is provided to the customer, said mailbox being shared between the customer's PC and mobile phone. An e-mail account is created which can be accessed from any mobile phone. SMS messages (Short Message Service) can be sent between mobile phones.
A general drawback of the existing services is the fact that normal mobile phones cannot be used to send large data. Such transfer is limited to short messages.
Document WO-A-9966746 is related to a method and a wireless telecommunications system allowing the sending of multimedia messages through one service center from a sender to a recipient. The document is specifically related to wireless data transmission of several types of data, such as text, speech, images, video or combinations thereof. This method is however reserved for third generation mobile communication systems, such as UMTS and IMT-2000, which support the transmission of video images for example. Normal networks supporting only the sending of speech and short messages are not compatible with this method.
Document WO-A-9965256 describes a system for delivering electronic messages to digital mobile phones, comprising subsystems for retrieving electronic messages from an e-mail server and for summarizing said messages into a form suitable for presentation on a mobile phone. The system does not allow the sending of files, irrespective of their type and size.
The present invention aims to use the convergence between mobile telephone systems and the Internet to transfer data, with the use of any kind of mobile phone.